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Topic: Scribus Webpage (Read 13351 times)

As for the dark theme, that's one of those things that is totally subjective. Some people like dark while others like light. Sometimes it depends on the subject matter but, personally, I think the dark theme looks better for Scribus because it helps as a contrast to the images. I don't think it would be a huge amount of work to change it but I think it can be left as it currently is unless a lot of people have a major problem with it.

Can you explain what you mean about a "download icon" please? (A link to a site that shows what you mean would help.) Do you just mean adding one of those "down arrow" icons to the button as can be seen on the GIMP home page, or something else?

I agree that the image under the "About Scribus" could do with some work. It needs to be something that shows Scribus in action but I agree that the grid should not be shown. If anyone has a really good screenshot, of Scribus being used to make something nice, we can look at using that instead. (And yes, the name of the file should probably change too.)

I agree that the Arrange Pages dialog is not the best one to show for that section. Maybe a combination of Align/Distribute with the Layers dialog would be better. It needs to be looked at.

A quick look at (link removed) shows that people have posted something in most of the forums this year. Can it really be that "dead"?

I agree that the link to the IRC would be a useful addition.

The financial donation button can be easily removed. It can be added later if necessary.

I've created GitHub issues for the relevant topics above.

P.S. You mentioned that it's about the small details now and I totally agree. We need to make sure that the site looks great and works really well. If the site has problems then people will think that the application has problems. I.e. "If they can't be bothered to get the site right then what does that say about the software?"

Can you explain what you mean about a "download icon" please? (A link to a site that shows what you mean would help.) Do you just mean adding one of those "down arrow" icons to the button as can be seen on the GIMP home page, or something else?

A quick look at link removed/ shows that people have posted something in most of the forums this year.

but take a look at them → almost no answers…

Quote

…Can it really be that "dead"?

yes, it is.…and this has historical reasons:the once active forum died by spam attacks (without an active administrator). then someone took over, but with the same problem – the forum is an orphane…

there was an effort to save it, but the new owner didn't cooperate in any way – so the active members moved on to the new forum under scribus-user.de.

the problem is that scribus newbies run against a wall by asking questions on a dead place. (and if someone links to the new forum, he gets banned a couple of weeks later – so there is some administration, but not enough to clean spam attacks in time…)

– for the benefit of the scribus project we should finally shut down the heart and lung machines and let it really die…

i've removed all references to the other german speaking forum from this thread.

that forum has the perfect name for google and is very high referenced.after a couple of years, that forum is still first in the google results for the most relevant search terms and we should try not boost it further by publishing links to it.

sadly, as utnik says, the admins of that forum being too passiv (and it seems to be impossible to get in touch with them) and all the people who were giving answers in there migrated to the newly created forum.the problem is that people still ask questions and do not get any answer.that's sad for scribus.

I think the site is at a point where the question can be asked.It's not quite fully polished but - to me at least - it makes a better job of promoting Scribus than the current site.The new site has no complex installation requirements, it's just HTML/CSS/JS with some images, so copying it over shouldn't be a huge issue.I would like to hear what the team thinks.

The content is already in GitHub which has all kinds of management stuff. Is anything more needed?

Or, to put it another way, are there really so many people that will be wanting to modify the site so frequently that extra management is needed?

The existing site only changes once every few months - probably less often - and I can't see a new site being updated on anything like a regular basis so why add an extra level of complication?

I think this can be handled much more casually, and if problems do arise then they can be addressed when they happen.

If you want a vibrant site that's full of interesting new things then the worst thing you can do is put it totally under the control of a few people who want everything done their way and take forever to "approve" things.

I understand the need for some level of editorial oversight but I really don't think most people making changes will be doing anything unreasonable.

I'm probably missing some technical issues - like getting the site updated automatically from the repo - but I would hope they can be handled reasonably easily.

Just out of interest, what kind of feedback did the person on IRC give about the proposed site?

i completely agree that just trusting the people on the feeling is probably enough.but in the case of scribus i don't see it as a successful path when proposing a new website.

i see at least three reasons for having a defined (it does not have to be complex!) editorial workflow that does not rely on a case by case process:

- currently the website is managed in the way you're suggesting and it does not work. i fear that if we leave the process as it is now, the website will quickly become outdated in many places.

- the current content is perfect for a prototype. imo, there are a few sections that need to be filled... and we want to keep the pages somehow up to date and provide relevant information to the current situation. we need new people to get involved to help out! we often have people that show up and are ready to make a bigger effort for a short time: how can we get them to be productive? the current process only integrates (if ever) people that have been sticking around for a long time... mostly just before they completely leave the scribus process.

- of course, most people won't be doing anything unreasonable. but we are talking about perfectly unknown people who came from the deep internet... and it's about avoiding that people with "criminal intents" can sneak in and change the download links to point to malware... some pages should only be accessible to the team... really.

I completely understand why some level of oversight is needed. The example you gave about changing links to point to malware is absolutely something that should be watched for. The same goes for people adding malicious javascript to the pages. And the list goes on.

I wasn't trying to say that the site should be completely and freely editable by anyone. That would be a terrible way to do things. What I was trying to say is that using GitHub (or something similar) would allow anyone to be able to make changes to their own copy of the site and then put in a pull request to get those changes made to the site itself. The pull request would have to be checked by someone of course but the whole process would be opened up to anyone who wanted to give it a try rather than the current process where only a very small group of people (or just one individual?) has access to potentially make changes to the site.

Letting people collaborate on changes that can be later incorporated into the site makes it easier for people to get involved. Their changes might not "make the cut" for whatever reason but at least they can have a go.

Personally - if the proposed site does eventually go ahead - I would like to see more areas being created. For example, I would like to see a new "Build and Installation" area that tells people how to get Scribus up-and-running. This will be easier to keep up-to-date if it wasn't "stuck" in a wiki where you have to get special access before you even start looking at changes. I would also like to see a new "Tutorials" section where people can learn to use Scribus by doing, rather than having bits and pieces of documentation all over the place.

Basically I would like the new sections to replace the wiki completely. It has done its job - up to a point - but it's time for it to go now. Putting these new sections into a site where change management was done via something like GitHub would make it a lot easier for people to make new content and maintain it.

It would be great if all of the Scribus documentation and information could be accessible from one place rather than from distributed wikis, forums and other places. And putting it all in somewhere like GitHub would enable that to happen much more quickly.

I may have been over-reacting to your use of the words "proposal" and "managed". I have worked in places where more work is put into a proposal than is actually needed to get the job done and where management of something can mean a drawn out process that takes longer, and way more people, than just doing the thing in the first place. Yes there have to be procedures in place but sometimes the procedures can become more important than just getting stuff done.

Anyway, I think we're both saying the same things but from slightly different perspectives:* The site should allow people to get involved easily but there should be controls in place to stop malicious acts;* The site should allow quick updates to be made while "something" ensures that those updates are correct and reasonable;* The site can only be productive if a large number of people have the ability - not necessarily access - to make changes.

I don't think any of this is unreasonable and I think it can all be achieved with GitHub. (I am not being sponsored by GitHub. Other development platforms are available.)

tim_occ made a nice template that could be also used with GRAV (a file-based CMS system https://getgrav.org/) which has the advantage to use pages from Github.An example, here is the documentation https://learn.getgrav.org/ which is saved on Github

One of the big problems with a CMS-based website is that there is the extra overhead of maintenance. Someone has to maintain a list of users with different security permissions and also install bug fixes and other things like a web server and so forth.

Also, there is the issue of what happens when the expert decides to leave the project. They could just drop out completely without any notice and leave things up in the air.

Keeping the website as plain HTML/CSS/JS means that anyone with a bit of knowledge can maintain the site and all of the security is done via GitHub. (The code used in the proposed site is very easy to change - it's just Bootstrap - and there's a tool that Martin mentioned that makes it even easier.)

CMS is a great idea when you want to control what gets done, how things look and what gets published but the extra work would, in the case of an open source project, make things more awkward in my opinion.